Author Archives: Harald Breiding-buss

CCA’s next workshop on Tuesday 25 June is about Understanding and Managing Payroll.

We will cover not just the technicalities of PAYE deductions, but also talk about handling ‘contractors’ (i.e. people you might ’employ’ but not deduct PAYE for) and Withholding Tax.

As Payroll is an area particularly vulnerable to fraud we will also spend some time on important internal controls.

Spaces are still available, register through http://commaccounting.co.nz/qcart, or email us at info@commaccounting.co.nz.

This Tuesday’s (11 June) workshop in our series is about accrual accounting and the journal. This is strongly recommended for administrators and treasurers in slightly larger not-for-profit organisations. Accrual accounting will likely become mandatory for organisations with expenses of $125,000 per year or more, and journal entries for accruals are the key factor that drives cost when using external accountants as well as for audits.
The workshop explains the most fundamental accounting principles (double entry accounting and the matching principle), which are important to understand for anyone attempting to create their own Statements of Financial Performance and/or Position.
There’s spaces left still. To register, please go to http://commaccounting.co/nz/qcart/

CCA has made a submission to the Ministry of Business, Innnovation and Enterprise’s revised proposal to regulate audits for registered charities.

The new proposal captures only about 13% of charities (those with expenditure of over $400,000). These are likely to already comply with the conditions due to existing funder requirements. About half of these will now have the option to have a ‘review’ instead of an audit, if their funders and their own rules allow it. CCA believes that the legislation will have no discernable effect on the sector, although it may generally lower the standard of auditing in the sector if ‘reviews’ become a more widespread option.

In our submission we called for auditor qualifications that include not-for-profit knowledge and expertise, rather than simply requiring membership in a professional body.

We also challenged the view that for-profits are not as financially accountable to the general public as not-for-profits, and we raised concerns about the poor definition of what constitutes a ‘review’. The assurance given by a ‘review’ may only reflect a low percentage of confidence in the correctness of the financial statements, and there is no case law which would define the responsibilities (and liabilities) of a ‘reviewer’.

The full submission can be found here:Submission MOBIE 2013

All remaining workshops in our accounting/admin series have been shifted by two weeks and to the new starting time of 10.30. Apologies for the inconvenience. The reason for this has been an unexpected overseas trip by myself (Harald) in April for family reasons, and also availability of an appropriate room.
The new dates are:
Management Accounting: 14 May
GST: 28 May
Accruals and the Journal: 11 June
Payroll: 25 June
Assets: 9 July
The venue will be the Westpac Business & Community Hub at 55 Jack Hinton Drive, unless advised otherwise.
Registrations are still possible for the workshops, please use commaccounting.co.nz/qcart for that.
Apologies again – looking forward to seeing you there.

The Ministry of Busines, Innovation and Employment has backtracked somewhat on its original proposal to mandate a Review by a Chartered Accountant for all not-for-profit organisations with expenditure of more than $200,000 and an Audit for those with more than $300,000.

In it’s latest, modified proposal, these thresholds have increased to $500,000 for reviews and $1 million for audits. We believe this is much more acceptable.

The proposal also charges the Department of Internal Affairs with monitoring compliance.

Submissions on this proposal close 13 May and can be done here: http://www.med.govt.nz/business/business-law/financial-reporting-framework-review/consultation-on-audit-and-assurance-for-registered-charities

Minister for the Voluntary and Community Sector Jo Goodhew said that the ‘whole idea of the new accounting standards is to make it easier, not harder, for non-profits’ at a meeting with representatives of non-profit sector groups on Friday.

Goodhew was referring to the new proposed accounting standards which will mandate the production of financial statements for all not-for-profit entities, no matter how small.

When asked to comment on the specific new requirement for organisations with over $40,000 in expenditure to produce a Statement of Cash Flows in addition to the other statements, she was unaware of this, however.

Goodhew also said that it was the community sector itself that has asked for these standards. However, submissions from community organisations to the External Reporting Boards first proposal to introduce new reporting requirements for not-for-profits in 2011 were almost unanimously opposed (http://www.med.govt.nz/business/business-law/financial-reporting-framework-review/submissions-on-the-financial-reporting-framework-discussion-document).

CCA’s Management Accounting workshop, scheduled for next Tuesday, 30 April, has been postponed by a week to 7 May.

It will be held at the Westpac Hub, Madras Training Room.

This workshop is held at 19 March, venue to be advised.

Grant and government income has a significant effect on many organisations’ Financial Statements, but not all grants are created equal. This workshop discusses what liabilities (if any) arise from accepting such income, the choices you have in how to report it in your Financial Statements, and what the impact of those choices are on your reported financial performance.

A representative from the Department of Internal Affairs will also be present to talk about how they view your grant accountability, and an IRD representative may also be available for questions on any tax implications.

Spaces are still available, please visit our workshops page or register here.

CCA has developed spreadsheets to make accounting and financial reporting easier for not-for-profits. They are available for free from our web site.

To get the most out of them, we recommend coming to our workshop this Tuesday at 9.30-10.30, at 9 Wilson’s Rd. We’ll explain how to record income and expenditure, track grants, do your monthly financial reporting, track your fixed assets, monitor a budget and track projects all in one workbook.

Some spaces still available – please ring (03) 669 0542, or book via our registration site.

The new accounting standards for not-for-profits proposed by the External Review Board (XRB) will mean community organisations will have a lot of extra reporting to do.

The at present very rarely produced Statement of Cash Flows will become mandatory for all organisations with expenses of more than $40,000. The new templates that the XRB would like small to medium non-profits to use also asks you to report on your budgets, and draw up a Statement of Service Performance, where you are asked for a breakdown of the outcome measures you have applied your funds to.

Organisations using the new templates will also likely face higher audit bills as auditors will now have more information to verify. Some auditors may decide to exclude the extra material from their audit, which will mean a ‘qualifier’ in their report.

The standards and templates are open for submissions until mid-March. The templates can be viewed here.

We believe it is important for all not-for-profits to make submissions as these new standards will place a significant additional compliance burden on the sector, and we will post more on this issue over the next weeks.